Flew, as he had, across in (7)
I believe the answer is:
hovered
'flew' is the definition.
(hovering is a kind of flying)
'he had across in' is the wordplay.
'he had' becomes 'he'd'.
'across' becomes 'over' (synonyms).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'hed' going around 'over' is 'HOVERED'.
'as' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for hovered that I've seen before include "Floated" , "Hung in the air" , "Remained in the air without moving" , "Remained in the one place in the air" .)